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Team
FEM's team is ambitious and impact-driven. We are passionate about creating a world in which everyone can make informed childbirth spacing decisions and no woman has to die from complications related to unwanted pregnancies.
Director of Operations
Waithera oversees and supports the operations processes at FEM. She works closely with current and potential funders to ensure obligations are successfully and punctually delivered. She also ensures that FEM’s processes comply with statutory regulations and best practices for an ambitious, fast-moving, and growing organisation.
Waithera is a strategic multiplier who thrives building and optimising systems that enable organisations to work more effectively. Before FEM, Waithera set up and oversaw the finance, HR, legal, and grant management functions at Siasa Place, the largest youth-serving organisation in Kenya. Some highlights of her work include the organisation’s recognition as the best grantee by ForumCiv for grant management and cost-effectively over-delivering on project milestones. Waithera has a BBS in Actuarial Science from Strathmore University and an MSc in Organisational Change and Development from the University of Manchester.
Lia Boldt
Director of Programmes
Lia oversees our content creation and research processes. She works closely with Dr. Usman, Tolu, and our implementing partners to develop evidence-driven, context-sensitive, and impactful radio campaigns. Lia also coordinates the development of a new evaluation technology, namely radio transmitters that override our ads and shows in selected regions, allowing us to compare effects on control and intervention groups. She also contributes to and organisational strategy.
Lia enjoys driving forward cost-effective solutions to global health challenges and is a passionate intercultural learner. Prior to FEM, Lia spent multiple years living and working in diverse cultural contexts in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Germany, and South Africa. Some highlights of her work include supporting education and health projects at UNESCO and GIZ and co-founding the nonprofit Sahakom e.V. to enhance global education. Lia holds an MSc in Developing and Evaluating Interventions from the University of Glasgow, where she specialised in family planning and women’s health.
Head of Research
Dr. Usman heads monitoring, evaluation, and learning processes at FEM. He contributes to designing quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments and works closely with our local implementation partners to train researchers and collect data.
Dr. Usman also leads data analysis, ensures learnings are implemented, and communicates findings to stakeholders.Dr. Usman is an analytical thinker with attention to detail and a passion for leading behaviour change among vulnerable groups in Nigeria. He has more than ten years of experience in advising research projects and training students in Nigeria. He investigated climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in Lagos and Lake Victoria as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bergen and lectured on social sciences and research methods at the Ahmadu Bello University. Dr Usman also served as a consultant for the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation Research Group. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Leicester.
Rowan Lund
Operations Manager
Rowan leads FEM’s legal and financial operations. On the legal side, he ensures our systems comply with the governing authorities of the countries in which we operate. On the financial side, he manages our daily payroll and accounting activities and optimises FEM’s financial processes.
Rowan enjoys optimising and implementing operational processes. Before joining FEM, he led an international dissemination project for the Bristol History Commission Report following the toppling of a statue of Edward Colston. He has also supported the operations, community engagement, and public relations of various charities, including Animals Aotearoa and Stop Ecocide. Rowan holds a BSc in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Bristol.
Anna Christina Thorsheim
Executive Director &
Co-founder
Anna Christina oversees all organisational activities. She ensures that team members are supported and that FEM prioritises strategically to achieve cost-effective impact at scale. Additionally, Anna Christina manages our partnerships and is deeply involved in our research, campaign development, and scaling.
Anna Christina is an ambitious and impact-driven entrepreneur with a commitment to evidence-based decision-making and a passion for improving health and well-being. She first became aware of the impact misinformation has on agency and maternal health in 2016 while researching the socio-cultural barriers to family planning uptake in rural Tanzania and has dedicated her work to solving this problem since. Before starting FEM, she co-founded a health-tech startup developing VR-based phobia treatment and worked as Head of PR at a startup incubator for for-profits aiming to achieve SDGs. Anna Christina studied Industrial Economics and Technology Management at NTNU, where she specialised in computer science, AI, and applied optimisation.
Mu'azu Muhammad
Director of Creative Development
Mu’azu provides technical and innovative guidance to our content creation processes. He ensures our material is entertaining and builds on our qualitative research. He also decides upon specific creative directions, such as setting up the airing order of ads and shows. Besides, Mu’azu works on FEM’s organisational strategy development.
Mu’azu is an experienced leader of social and behaviour change and family planning interventions in Nigeria. Before FEM, Mu’azu managed and implemented various USAID funded projects on maternal health, family planning, nutrition, malaria and vaccination with Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs and John Snow Inc. He also founded a non-profit that provides childbirth spacing services to families in rural areas of Northern Nigeria. Mu’azu is currently studying an MPA in Development Practice at Columbia University and holds a master’s in International Studies from Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto.
Tolulope Oyekanmi
Head of Growth
Tolu manages our scaling projects. Her work includes the selection of locations where our intervention can be most cost-effective and the vetting and onboarding of local implementation partners. Tolu also provides support and training to partner organisations during the proof-of-concept and pilot stages. She ensures we build the structures necessary to jointly implement evidence-driven and context-sensitive campaigns.
As a health and empowerment enthusiast, Tolu has more than ten years of experience in implementing and advising reproductive, maternal, and child health projects. She has worked with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Population Services International across the northern and southern regions of Nigeria, largely on reducing maternal mortality through the uptake of family planning and other maternal health services. Tolu has obtained a BSc in Nursing and Midwifery and an MSc in International Health and Management.
Kabiru Abdulkareem
Research & Process Manager
Kabiru oversees our monitoring and research processes. He works closely with radio stations to ensure that all our ads and shows are aired timely and supervises the execution of field research. He also conducts quality controls on campaign material and research data and identifies opportunities for process improvement. In addition, Kabiru supports the external engineering team in monitoring our new transmitter technology.
Kabiru is a detail-oriented system thinker with a focus on supporting disadvantaged communities in northern Nigeria. Before joining FEM, he managed field activities at New Incentives, a Give-Well recommended organisation that increases the uptake of childhood vaccines. He also supported eHealth Africa in implementing GIS information technology programmes to monitor polio immunisation campaigns. Kabiru has a BSc in Public Administration and a diploma in Mass Communication and Media Studies from the University of Abuja, Nigeria.
Partners
iDevPro-Africa is our local implementing partner in Kano, Nigeria. iDevPro is led by Dr. Mansur Tukur.
Founder&Executive Director
iDevPro-African Institute
Dr. Mansur leads our operations in northern Nigeria together with Lia. He manages relationships with researchers, writers, production studios, and radio stations. He also ensures our campaign content is in line with the latest SBC research and feedback from key stakeholders such as the Kano Ministry of Health and religious leaders. Besides, Dr. Mansur supervises our monitoring and evaluation processes and provides strategic advice to FEM’s scaling projects.
Dr. Mansur is one of the foremost family planning experts in Nigeria. Highlights of his work include serving as the Regional Manager for Marie Stopes in northern Nigeria and the Senior Family Planning Advisor for Palladium's Family Planning Technical Support Unit project. He has supported public health interventions with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Pathfinder International, and FHI360. In addition, Dr. Mansur is a co-founder of M-SPACE Consulting, which has been funded by the Gates Foundation to build family planning support units. Dr. Mansur earned a Ph.D. in International Health from the University of Nicaragua.
Advisory Board
Dr. Amina Aminu Dorayi
Nigeria Country Director at Pathfinder International
Dr Amina Aminu is the Nigeria Country Director at Pathfinder International, where she provides strategic leadership and oversees programmatic and operational management. Prior to this role, Dr Amina Aminu served as a Technical Director at the USAID-funded Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus project and a Senior Technical Advisor for Abt Associates. She was also the Associate Deputy National Program Manager and Director of Service Delivery at the DFID-funded Partnership for Transforming Health Systems Phase II project. Dr Amina Aminu holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, and a Master of Public Health from the University of Liverpool.
Co-founder and Board Member at New Incentives (GiveWell top recommended charity)
Patrick is a co-founder and Chair of the Board of the GiveWell-incubated charity, New Incentives, which works on child health in northern Nigeria. He is also a director at the NGO incubation program, Charity Entrepreneurship. In this role, Patrick has mentored numerous evidence-based startup non-profit organisations. Previously, Patrick served as a political advisor with Switzerland’s economic development agency, where he focused on negotiations around the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. He holds a Master’s in Political Science and Communications from Universität Bern.
Natalya Katsap
Associate Partner McKinsey
Co-founder Global Business Coalition on AIDS, TB, and Malaria
Natalya is an associate partner with McKinsey, based in Oslo. Focused on energy, she serves primarily oil and gas operators, as well as broader energy companies on digitally enabled performance transformation.
Before joining McKinsey, Natalya was a founding member, and program director of an NGO start-up focused on HIV/AIDS in Russia, which ultimately became part of the Global Business Coalition on AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
Chief Economist at IDinsight
Dan Stein is the Chief Economist of the evaluation firm IDinsight, where he is also a Partner. As Chief Economist, Dan is responsible for setting and maintaining technical standards throughout the organisation, developing exciting new projects and partnerships, and helping manage IDinsight’s team of technical experts. Dan is also a co-founder of Giving Green, which provides evidence-based guidance to help donors and volunteers fight climate change. Prior to IDinsight, Dan was an economist at the World Bank, where he specialized in agriculture and forestry impact evaluations. Dan holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Morenike Omaiboje
Board member and Director of Programmes of the Women’s Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON)
Director of Programmes of the Women’s Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON). Morenike is a Board member and Director of Programmes of the Women’s Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON). WOCON is a non-profit organisation committed to the enforcement of women’s and children’s rights and the attainment of equality, development, and peace. Morenike manages large donor-sponsored projects involving grassroots outreach, behaviour change, community mobilization, awareness creation, and advocacy.
Joey Savoie
Co-founder and Director of Strategy Charity Entrepreneurship
Joey works on high-level strategy across all the departments and mentorship and training for the participants of the Incubation Programs. He is also one of the primary contributors to the handbook "How to Start a High-Impact Nonprofit". Prior to Charity Entrepreneurship, Joey co-founded Charity Science, a meta-organization that increased the amount of counterfactual funding going to high-impact charities. Subsequently, he co-founded Charity Science Health, a nonprofit that increases vaccination rates in India using mobile phones and behavioral nudges.